Here's a look at some of the evacuations, road closures and other storm-related news being reported throughout New Jersey as Hurricane Sandy draws near.

NOTE:

This post will be updated continuously throughout the day. Keep checking back as news develops around the state.

ATLANTIC COUNTY

• Casinos in

Atlantic City

shut down, as ordered by the state, and had to be emptied of all gamblers, partiers and hotel guests by 4 p.m. today. Few remained this afternoon as workers shooed away the stragglers. But in a town that likes to play the odds and let it ride, there are those who won’t go. They say they’ve been through this before, dire predictions or not. Even some who had water on their street this morning, the result of the high tide, weren’t concerned.

CAPE MAY COUNTY

• In

Cape May

, more than 300 U.S. Coast Guard recruits and staff boarded buses today to evacuate the Coast Guard training center, and more than 1,000 Coast Guardsmen and their families also evacuated. &bull The county has opened two shelters for residents who cannot go to local shelters--one at the Carl; Sandburg Middle School on Route 516, just off Route 9 north, in Old Bridge and at the Woodbridge Community Center 600 Main Street in Woodbridge. The Old Bridge shelter is open now but the Woodbridge shelter will open at 10 p.m. tonight (Sunday). • In Carteret, officials will open shelters in the Carteret Middle School on Carteret Avenue and the Nathan Hale School on Haywood and Roosevelt Avenues at 6 a.m. tomorrow (Monday). • In

East Brunswick,

the shelter opens at 8 p.m. tonight at the reception center of the Trinity Baptist Church on Cranbury Road. &bull In

Edison

, the Edison Senior Center, 2963 Woodbridge Avenue, will open as a shelter at 8 p.m. tonight. • In

Milltown

, the reception centers at the firehouses on Cottage Avenue and South Main Street will open tonight. •

Monroe Township

will open a shelter at the high school, but will communicate the opening time via reverse 911. • In

Sayreville

, the borough will open a shelter at the senior citizens center at 425 Main Street at 8 a.m. tomorrow (Monday). • The

South Brunswick

Office of Emergency Management is requesting all residents refrain from non-essential travel starting at 12:01am Monday morning. “As the conditions continue to deteriorate it is important to keep the roadways clear for emergency personnel,” said OEM Director Chief Raymond Hayducka. In addition OEM officials are reminding residents that there are no evacuations or shelters in South Brunswick at this time. • Middlesex County will be activating its Office of Emergency management center tonight at 10 p.m. and it will be staffed 24 hours throughout the storm, according to Freehold H. James Polos, who chairs the committee of law and public safety. Polos said the county has been working with local Office of Emergency Management officials to supply what they need. "We have staged equipment they requested," he said. He said the county has not declared a state of emergency independently of the state and has not yet made a decision on whether to close all county offices tomorrow. •

New Brunswick

has issued a statement saying that Lord Stirling School will be opening as a shelter during the storm for anyone who needs one. No time was given as to when the school on George Street will open.

MONMOUTH COUNTY

•

Highlands

Route 36 East has been closed. • In

Keyport,

tonight, winds had picked up considerably, driving waters of the Raritan Bay over the seawall. Water had been pushed onto streets on nearby roads like First Street, which was already closed, the first of what would be many to come. In

Keansburg

, the vacant amusement park and water park — shuttered for the season — provided an eerie scene as ride swings creaked in the wind and plastic slides rattled. Despite an order to evacuate the east side of Route 36, it was business as usual. Bars were busy and a small crowd gathered to watch the water rise at Keyport boat docks and side streets in the town that dead ended at the bay. • As a significant storm surge on coastal areas along the

. Keanesburg - About 2/3rds of the borough has been ordered to evacuate, beginning at 4 p.m. this afternoon, said Ray O'Hare, the borough manager. The mandatory evacuations extend from the coast about a half-mile inland, he said. The evacuations extends to all areas north of Kennedy Way to Carr Avneue, north of Maple Avenue to Main Street and north of Forest Avenue from Main Street to Park Avenue, north of Park Avenue from Forest Avenue to the Middletown border. Union Beach - A mandatory evacuation has been issued for the whole community as of 4 p.m., said Michael Harriot, the community's emergency management coordinator. Old Bridge - Authorities are asking residents of all low-lying areas to evacuate, especially Cliffwood Way in Laurence Harbor, and all residents east of Route 35 from the Morgan Bridge to Cliffwood Beach, and the south Old Bridge streets that flooded during Tropical Storm Irene last year — River Road, Appleby, Sunset and Madison Roads. Highlands – Authorities are asking all non-essential businesses north of Route 36 to close as of 7 p.m. and asking all residents in the area to evacuate as of 9 p.m., said police spokesman Capt. Henry Clagett. Convenience stores and gas stations can remain open, he said. Keyport - A few block section along Beard Street to West Front Street is being evacuated. • The

, which includes a mandatory evacuation and closure of businesses by noon Monday. • Tidal water from the Rumson River reached the streets of

Sea Bright

around 7 this morning. "Every time there's high tide and a full moon we get flooding," said Jim Koniuk, 61, who with his friend, Linnea Lawson, was enjoying a late lunch at Mad Hatter bar in Sea Bright.

at 4 p.m., but Koniuk had already made plans to leave town this morning. • As many as 1,500 people will be sleeping on cots and sharing bathroom facilities at Monmouth University's MAC Center in

West Long Branch

, said Lisa Rodgers of Long Branch, a volunteer who greeted people as they trickled into the sprawling sports complex. The gym was split into sleeping and eating sections; a training room was converted into an infirmary, she said. "If someone gets hurt we can handle all their needs. We could even deliver a baby," Rodgers, an EMT, said. Ambulances were readily available to take anyone in serious need of medical care to a nearby hospital, she said.

MORRIS COUNTY

, garbage, recycling and yard waste have been suspended for Monday and Tuesday. The summer collection schedule will be in place just for this Wednesday through Saturday, so each resident gets at least one pick up this week. • In

Parsippany

, sandbags, sand and shovels are available to residents at the parking lot at the corner of Lake Shore Drive and Rockaway Boulevard in Lake Hiawatha, which is located across the street from the Lake Hiawatha Swim Club. • In

Morristown

, parking garages will be open at 4 p.m. on Monday for residents to park their vehicles during the storm. Changes to the schedule may occur, pending changes in the storm. Parking updates will be available on the municipal website before 12 p.m. Monday. • If rainfall is significant, Route 23 is expected to flood, according to municipal officials. • Morris County officials are also targeting residents with special needs and taking other preventive measures, said Jeff Paul, director of the Morris County OEM. “We’re doing a lot of preventative work at the moment, identifying residents that have special needs and those kind of things that might be able to be addressed up front rather than addressing it in the middle of the storm,” he said. “There’s been a lot of pre-planning and a lot of the lessons that we have learned from Irene we’ve put into practice for this event.” Paul is encouraging residents with non-emergency calls to contact each municipality’s emergency operations center rather than calling 911. “We will have flooding and water issues; we know that and we are preparing for that,” Paul said. “But we don’t want to have general non-emergent calls going to the 911 centers and the local police departments because it’s obviously going to be overburdened.”

OCEAN COUNTY

• In

Long Beach Island

, just a year out from the threat of Irene, residents are heeding the warnings ahead of Hurricane Sandy by battening down the hatches. Some followed orders to evacuate by 4 p.m. today, but others decided to stay put despite the threat of a high storm surge. The water from the first high tide is already inundating the main road, Long Beach Boulevard, making it difficult for cars to pass parts of Beach Haven and Ship Bottom. That's why some residents are taking Sandy much more seriously than Irene last year. • In

Seaside Heights

, even with the water swallowing most of the beach, a few New Jerseyans

, catching a last glimpse of Hurricane Sandy. While the boardwalk still had a crowd, the rest of Seaside Heights was a proverbial ghost town this evening. The roads were empty, lined with boarded up buildings and vacated houses. But the lone bridge into town remainED open, and state officials could not say if, or when, they would shut it down.

SALEM COUNTY

• In Salem County officials have asked for voluntary evacuations of residents living along the Delaware River as well as in flood-prone areas further inland, said Jeffrey Pompper, director of the county’s Office of Emergency Management. Pompper said sandbags have been distributed to municipalities and have identified elderly residents and those with special needs that may need assistance. “Our concern at this point is what is going to happen with the storm,” he said “It’s not an ‘if’ its just what is going to happen. “I think we are as prepared as we can possibly be at this point,” Pompper said. “Hopefully the residents have listened to the instructions and they have left those low lying flood-prone areas.” It is important that residents listen to directions during the storm, particularly if a ban on travel is put into place. “We can’t have the public driving through standing water and things like that,” Pompper said. The American Red Cross opened a shelter at Salem County Community College, at 460 Hollywood Avenue in Carneys Point Township, at 6 p.m. Sunday.

SOMERSET COUNTY

still-incomplete flood control system can be closed if the borough becomes deluged with water from Hurricane Sandy, Bound Brook Mayor Carey Pilato said today. The flood control project, just part of a $650 million multi-county system by the Army Corps of Engineers, is largely credited by Bound Brook officials with saving the borough from catastrophic damages in Tropical Storm Irene last year. Irene's floodwaters reached about 1 to 3 feet in Bound Brook, according to the borough. Bound Brook, however, still saw some serious flooding largely because a gate over the rail tracks near the Talmage Avenue bridge had not been completed. What resulted was significant flooding of homes nearby — the worst reported in Bound Brook, according to borough officials. The remaining gate has now been completed and is operational, Pilato said. The Bound Brook system in total is about "98 to 90 percent" complete, he said.

SUSSEX COUNTY

• A pet-friendly shelter has been opened at the Sussex County Community College and the county’s Bureau of Corrections has begun filling sandbags, said Captain George Kately, deputy coordinator of the OEM there. But officials do not know exactly where to place those sandbags yet. “We really can’t tell based on the path of the storm,” Kately said. “We have some areas that commonly do flood and last year’s hurricanes we had significant flooding in

Stillwater

Township as well as Branchville Borough.” Kately is urging residents to stay indoors. “We are going to have excessively high winds,” he said. “The biggest concern is debris and falling trees.”

UNION COUNTY

•

Cranford

Police have announced a mandatory evacuation of the flood zone of Cranford. The statements orders that residents must be out of the evacuation zone by noon on Monday. Police advise that the Cranford Recreation Center on Walnut Avenue offers a shelter for those who have no alternative. The shelter will open at 4 p.m. today. Union County officials announced a number of closings because of the storm. Union County Superior Court and Vicinage will be closed Monday, and Union County Paratransit Services are canceled for Monday and Tuesday. Public ice skating at the Warinanco Skating Center was canceled Sunday evening, and the center will remain closed Monday for the duration of the storm. Trailside Nature & Science Center and Watchung Stables will be closed Monday and remain closed for the duration of Hurricane Sandy. Watchung Stable boarders are encouraged to stay home. Staff will care for all school & boarder horses throughout the storm. Haunted Hayrides also were canceled on Sunday. All Union County Golf Properties, Galloping Hill, The Learning Center and Ash Brook will be closed Monday and Tuesday. Sebastian D’Elia, director of communications for Union County, said water levels had been lowered at several lakes in its parks including Nomahegan Lake in